


Hypnotic Confusion, or, That Time John Sheppard Got Involved With the Question of PDAs

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-05
Updated: 2008-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>". . . which brings me to the final item on today's agenda."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypnotic Confusion, or, That Time John Sheppard Got Involved With the Question of PDAs

". . . which brings me to the final item on today's agenda."

Rodney blinks and widens his eyes, trying with a passable amount of might and main not to fall asleep into his briefing book. Like everyone else gathered at the conference table – save Ronon, who's just staring Woolsey down as he always does – Rodney flips over to the next indecipherable document in his folder, his fingers a little clumsy thanks to boredom and the after-effects of staying up until 3am annihilating Sheppard on his Wii, and as Woolsey drones on he musters the courage to look at another page of ten-point-font, idly wondering if his fatigue is at least in part owed to Woolsey's vaguely hypnotic tonal range. It would be just his luck to come to in five minutes with his pants on his head, bocking like a chicken. Thursdays always seem to involve something of the sort.

"I'm sure you'll agree," Woolsey says, smiling at Rodney, which is just plain weird, "that such a change is long overdue."

Rodney risks a sideways glance at Teyla, who's smiling broadly and practically glowing, but all that tells him is that Woolsey hasn't proposed deploying the bomb or distributing Right Guard on the planet where bodily odors are highly prized. Plus she's Teyla – glowing is pretty much a matter of course unless someone's proposing genetic experiments on Wraith or trying to steal her stash of cashews. Rodney looks at Ronon, but Ronon's looking at John, and Rodney's learned not to look at John unless he wants to be stripped of his ability to pretend he's mature – looking at John usually ends with him spluttering helplessly and promising to punch him in the face, or stifling laughter like it's Great Aunt Doris' funeral again, or getting hot and bothered and trying to remember exactly how cold it was at the bottom of a sinkhole in Antartica. With all avenues of figuring out what the hell is going on closed to him, he does the unthinkable and reads the paper in his briefing book.

CHANGES TO THE UNIFORM CODE OF CONDUCT . . .

"Oh, fuck me," he says earnestly.

Woolsey clears his throat. "I don't think that's exactly what . . . "

"Oh, would you _blow me_ , it's a figure of _speech_!" Rodney says, pushing back his chair, wiping his suddenly sweaty hands on the fabric of his pants. "I mean – I don't actually mean – in fact it's all just a figure of speech and it's probably a sign of how frightening repressed most of the world is, and by world I mean Earth, and by Earth I mean men who purport to be straight, as if they never ogled any other man's ass which is, frankly, ridiculous, as the NFL would be out of business if there weren't some allure to the sight of a tight Tight End in a pair of – but, yes, yes, it's possible I'm digressing, it's been known to happen, especially in situations where – " He waves a hand. "I do best when I can vocalize, say things out loud, articulate what I – and _god_ , what took them so _long_ , I am _forty-seven years old_ and have come back from the dead _at least twice that I can remember_ and it's only _now_ that I can kiss my – thing, with the stuff, guy, you know, HIM," he manages, pointing shakily toward John, "without him getting fired? That _sucks_!"

Ronon chuckles. "Oh, yeah?"

"Shut it," Rodney says, spurred into motion, rounding the conference table, finally looking John right in the eye, despite John's attempts to look at the ceiling, the floor, the grain of the wood in the conference table, anywhere but at Rodney. "Jesus," Rodney says. "We are so . . . " He swallows hard, breathing harder, standing not two feet from John's half-tied boots "So, so, so," Rodney breathes, and he almost whimpers with relief when John stands up, when John takes his face between his hands and leans in, touching their lips together, a soft, gentle, whisper of a kiss that Rodney can feel in places he's fairly sure have been sleeping through more than Woolsey's briefings.

"Yeah," John says, and his voice is exactly the sort of rough and cracked that always makes Rodney's heart twist hard inside his chest and fear some sort of cardiac event that will rob him of further installments of this sort of happy. So he hauls John in, kisses him again, kissing him recklessly with all the fervor he has stored up in his chest and his brain, until his breath backs up and he has to pull away to go on living. And isn't that just the conundrum that defines almost everything, the quantum puzzle of how to gather this moment up with both his gifted hands and not expire from the sheer bloody-minded insanity of it all?

Rodney smiles, thumbing the corner of John's mouth. "All right, then," he says, watching John smile back.

"I, um." Woolsey clears his throat, sounding far too much like someone's proud parent for Rodney's taste. "Meeting adjourned?"

"You think?" Rodney snaps, just for old time's sake, but then he leans in slowly in to taste a little bit of everything worth having, hidden right there at the angle of John's stubbled jaw.


End file.
